Actually I’ve only met Mike Keown once in my life. He seemed like a very decent person, and is certainly brave for taking this risk to leave the GA House and run against an entrenched incumbent.

Many things can affect election results, T. It certainly didn’t help Lee that Club for Growth spent a half mill to attack him. That’s life, and Lee’s ok with that. Those Club funds certainly helped offset the issue of the “Methamphetamine 6 motel” and his bank’s accusations that he committed fraud.

It’s almost impossible for Marshall to end up with less than 45% in that district, even in a year like this. And what you’d expect to see in polls leading up to election day is for Marshall to have more or less the support level he’s going to get with Scott as the challenger having more room to grow.

So let’s say that Scott ends up winning in a blowout 55-45, which I do not think will happen. What you’re telling me is that there’s going to be a late minute almost 3:1 swing to the incumbent in a bad year for Democrats with an 8 year incumbent with very high name ID.

I’m sorry – that is just not believable. Even if you give all the black undecided to Marshall, which is what I think you’re suggesting, he’s at like 41%. While that is conceivable, not in the same universe that Scott is already at nearly 52%.

The point is, if Scott were to end up at 52% in the election, it would be due to late breakers. He would not be there now.

I know you consider yourself something of a consultant, but Mark has doing a lot more of this and a lot longer than you. If you don’t like the results of a poll either do your own or don’t read it. I don’t need someone with an agenda telling me how wrong something is without saying what is wrong with it.

Four years is an eternity in politics. It’s an eternity plus a year when national politics is so volatile that a sitting president carries negative coat-tails when he’s not even on the ballot.

For the record, I anticipate Austin Scott to win by double digits here in Dodge County and by between 8 and 12 percent district-wide. If I’m off, it will be because I underestimated Austin’s margin of victory.

@Chris if you look at the internals of the numbers Marshall will end up doing better than Mark Taylor. However, he won’t be able to do enough better, barring something dramatic happening, to win the race.

The DCCC pulled its money from Marshall for a reason and I think that is reflected in the numbers.

1. The poll was conducted over 12 days. Unheard of.
2. Jim Marshall is referred to the Democrat Incumbent. It is ok to call him “the Democrat” but when using Incumbent after it you would say “the Democratic Incumbent”.
3. This is a district that has an average Democratic performance in good years and bad (2002, 2004, 2006, 2008) of approximately 44-47%. Yet Only/Mostly for Republicans outnumbers the Democratic number 61.7 to 32.7. Yes, if this were the 6th district of Georgia those would be numbers you would expect. Not here.
4. Asking voters if they are undecided or have no opinion. Well, what is it – undecided or no opinion? One’s a likely voter (maybe) and one is definitely not.

Yeah obviously if you look at this, you would say that Marshall will eventually will get what Taylor got. That’s not the point. The point is, even a candidate that got blown out in the home district of his popular opponent got a higher percentage than a popular 8 year incumbent is getting in this poll.

Plus, in many races in this district the Democratic candidate gets more votes than the Republican candidate, Public Service Commission races, Democratic incumbents (Thurbert Baker got 58% here in 2006).

Additionally, Marshall has never gotten less than 54% of the vote in the Macon DMA, which represents about 60% of the district. Even if he completely crashed there, I’d be shocked if he got less than 50% there. Seeing as that’s a majority of the district, he’d have to get something like 12.5% in the rest of the district to end up in the 35% range.

Look can Austin Scott win – sure. But is it possible that Marshall has less than 45% of the votes in this district. No. It is impossible.

1. where do you get the idea the survey was conducted over twelve days? It was one night. This week.

2. We simply provide the data that’s on the ballot. We identify him as an incumbent and as an incumbent.

3. we didn’t expect anything. you shouldn’t either. this was simply the result of asking people their opinions. the district is substantially white in terms of actual non-presidential year voting: about 3/4ths in fact. Democrat candidates are simply not performing well with white voters.

4. this is a common way to ask people if they are undecided or have no opinion. it’s the same way we’ve asked polls for fifteen years.

Chris, we aren’t saying the race is over, though the DNCC is apparently saying it’s over. (as you know, they pulled out of here last week to let Marshall’s campaign die in peace). We *are* saying, however, that the race is accurate as of two nights ago at 51-36.

It will certainly tighten by the end. But Marshall seems to be finished unless something big happens.

There’s no question that Landmark is a GOP firm. We have been around for 20 years, and have run more campaigns across the state than anyone. If you think that’s a secret, you live in a pretty dark cave. 😉

That being said, we paid for this poll ourselves — no one else. Nor was anyone else consulted on content or questions.

We’ve done polling since 1995, most of the time my company has been in existence. We don’t normally release our polls publicly…we are just releasing a few this year because of the level of interest in the elections, yet the lack of real polling data being offered.

I’m a Republican and we know you’re a Republican company; neither have ever been a secret. So, perhaps the Democrats on here can explain why no unaffiliated Democrat pollster conducted polls down here. I think it’s the same reason the DCC pulled their ad money. They already know Scott will beat Marshall.

Mark catches a lot of BS for doing his work. Y’all lighten up a hair and give a guy some credit for posting under his own name, with his firm rep on the line. I know ‘rabbit punches’ come with the territory, but really!

Despicable? Ashamed? I can think of many folks, whose actions are far worse, that don’t deserve those adjectives.

While I am no fan of political consultants in general, I have known Mark for over 20 years and can say that he has a good reputation (I don’t expect any Dem to agree) and is a talented consultant. The accusations on here have no foundation.

I’m new to this blog. I came here on a Google search looking for info on the Ga.-8 poll that was mentioned in the AJC. The discussion above doesn’t give me confidence in the poll. I admit I haven’t bothered to dissect the poll’s mechanics, but my instinct is that if Marshall loses, it would be by a whisker. Meanwhile, I’ve gotten the strong initial impression that this website is more of a platform for creative (wishful) thinking by R. partisans than a place for quality analysis and serious discussion.

Scott by 16? Come on. Why should any independent analyst waste his or her time coming back here other than just to take the temperature of a few blowhard partisans trying to make a market for themselves and their cottage industries? Aside from the absurdity of the poll on its face, the pollster’s repeated appearances on this thread make it clear to me that that the poll cannot be legitimate — another reason not to waste any time figuring out how such ridiculous numbers got cooked up.

I’ll check in after the election and see if you “pundits” have any thoughts about this episode of stupidly partisan b.s.

I’ve gotten the strong initial impression that this website is more of a platform for creative (wishful) thinking by R. partisans than a place for quality analysis and serious discussion.

We’re really so partisan that we’ve thrown the present Lt. Governor under the bus, supported the “liberal” candidate for Governor, endorsed Carol Porter, about half our front page posters have been blatantly in favor of Roy Barnes, and run down a host of other Republicans in the past.

That said we’ve also posted about an internal poll from Marshall’s campaign that has him ahead by twelve points.

I’m not here to defend or challenge Landmark’s polls nor polling practices – but I will suggest that perhaps you have the wrong impression of this website. Look around, you may find something you like. =)

I do find it interesting that you went to a blog that you say you have never been to before in order to find polling crosstabs, rather than to the actual website where the AJC said they are available: http://www.landmarkcommunications.net

I also find it interesting that you have such strong, predetermined ideas of what you believe the polling numbers should have looked like: your words are “ridiculous numbers got cooked up.”

It seems you might be just a bit biased in your ‘research’.

I made a decision when releasing our surveys to be responsive to answering questions raised by reasonable, intelligent people. I chose to provide transparency to our surveys rather than announcing them and refusing to engage in public conversations.

I welcome you to email me directly via our website to ask any question you wish: black/white percentages, how the list was created, margin of error, etc